Madame Roland, among her other innumerable accomplishments, had acquired no little skill in the science of medicine. Situated in a region where the poor peasants had no access to physicians, she was not only liberal in distributing among them many little comforts, but, with the most self-denying assiduity, she visited them in sickness, and prescribed for their maladies. She was often sent for, to go a distance of ten or twelve miles to visit the sick. From such appeals she never turned away. On Sundays, her court-yard was filled with peasants, who had assembled from all the region round, some as invalids, to seek relief, and others who came with such little tokens of their gratitude as their poverty enabled them to bring. Here appears a little rosy-cheeked boy with a basket of chestnuts; or a care-worn mother, pale and thin, but with a grateful eye presenting to her benefactrice a few small, fragrant cheeses, made of goat's milk; and there is an old man, hobbling upon crutches, with a basket of apples from his orchard. She was delighted with these indications of gratitude and sensibility on the part of the unenlightened and lowly peasantry. Her republican notions, which she had cherished so fondly in her early years, but from which she had somewhat swerved when seeking a patent of nobility for her husband, began now to revive in her bosom with new ardor. She was regarded as peculiarly the friend of the poor and the humble; and at all the hearth-fires in the cottages of that retired valley, her name was pronounced in tones almost of adoration. More and more Madame Roland and her husband began to identify their interests with those of the poor around them, and to plead with tongue and pen for popular rights. Her intercourse with the poor led her to feel more deeply the oppression of laws, framed to indulge the few in luxury, while the many were consigned to penury and hopeless ignorance. She acquired boundless faith in the virtue of the people, and thought that their disenthralment would usher in a millennium of unalloyed happiness. She now saw the ocean of human passions reposing in its perfect calm. She afterward saw that same ocean when lashed by the tempest.
Portentous mutterings.--Welcomed as blessings.--Enthusiasm of Madame Roland.--Louis XVI.--Maria Antoinette.--Character of Maria Antoinette.--Character of Louis.--M. Roland elected to the Assembly.--Ardor of his wife.--Popularity of the Rolands.--They go to Paris.--Reception of the Rolands at Paris.--Sittings of the Assembly.--Tastes and principles.--Conflict for power.--The Girondists.--The Jacobins.--Meetings at Madame Roland's.--Appearance of Robespierre.--His character.--Remains of the court party.--Influence of Madame Roland.--Madame Roland's mode of action.--Her delicacy.--Robespierre at Madame Roland's.--Horrors of the Revolution.--Fears of the Girondists.--Violence of the Jacobins.--Resolution of the Girondists.--Warning of Madame Roland.--Danger of Robespierre.--He is concealed by Madame Roland.--Baseness of Robespierre.--The Assembly dissolved.--The Rolands again at La Platière.--They return to Paris.--Plots and counterplots.--Political maneuvering.--Massacres and conflagrations.--The king insulted and a prisoner.--The king surrenders.--M. Roland Minister of the Interior.--Madame Roland in a palace.--M. Roland's first appearance at court.--Horror of the courtiers.--M. Roland's opinion of the king.--Madame Roland's advice.--Her opinion of kings and courtiers.